“To actually make peace, where open wrong, hostility, and destruction now operate, is the hardest and best work in the world. It involves saying true words that some people might not like to hear: “That’s wrong. Let’s solve it.” It… — David A. Powlison Copy Share Image
“No one can understand a person who isn’t willing to hold two opposites together. You can’t understand yourself without holding the creation and fall… — David A. Powlison Copy Share Image
“Here is the sweet paradox in how God works. He blesses those who admit that they need help: The poor in spirit are blessed (Matthew 5: 3). Sanity has a deep awareness, I need help. I can’t do life right on my own. Someone outside me must intervene. The sanity of honest humility finds mercy, life, peace, and strength. By… — David A. Powlison Copy Share
“Second, Jimmy lived in a universe that featured him. Everything was all about one all-important, all-offended being. Every scene in his film, every page of his book, every news story in his daily paper circled around Jimmy—but he was never an agent or cause of anything. Every person, event, place, and object existed only to the degree that it affected… — David A. Powlison Copy Share
“Motives are your core values and commitments, what you base your identity on.” — David A. Powlison Copy Share Image
“His mercy is not niceness. His mercy is not blanket acceptance of any and all. Mercy to us costs him—the blood of the Lamb. And mercy comes to us at the cost of our sins and pride. His kindness is an open invitation to turn to him in repentance and faith, to come to him in our need for mercies… — David A. Powlison Copy Share
“Mercy is an entirely different way of reacting to offenses, to things we think are wrong. Think about this: mercy is not a non-reactive indifference—because it cares. And it’s the furthest thing from approval—because what’s happening is wrong. Mercy includes a component of forceful anger, but anger’s typical hostility, vindictiveness, and destructiveness does not dominate. True mercy proceeds hand in… — David A. Powlison Copy Share
“First, notice the weather. “Our Father . . . makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on… — David A. Powlison Copy Share Image
“By instinct, habit, and enculturation, all of us tend to think of counseling as a human-with-human interaction. But in fact a human-with-Savior interaction must… — David A. Powlison Copy Share Image
“To actually make peace, where open wrong, hostility, and destruction now operate, is the hardest and best work in the world. It involves saying… — David A. Powlison Copy Share Image
“Motives are not only the fine china of plausible desires and honest hurt. They are also the steel and high explosives of all-consuming self-will.” — David A. Powlison Copy Share Image
“Every one of us has a hard time changing. It’s hard to think straight about anger. It grabs you and it’s got you. The… — David A. Powlison Copy Share Image
“There’s something high and mighty about anger, when distilled to its basic elements. Anger goes wrong when you get godlike. Your desires become divine… — David A. Powlison Copy Share Image
